The members of the National Football League (NFL), serve less as ‘slaves’ than they do as ‘Gladiators.” They are contestants in combat for the public spectacles in which they choose to perform. They are supplied with proper protective equipment to deflect the blows of their adversaries, their own weapons, their speed and agility.

They are, as well, paid unbelievably high salaries to defray the cost of their off season pleasures. Being an all male clique, they must supply their own women, booze and drugs while avoiding the police who will arrest them if stopped and, they hate to be stopped.

As high paid Gladiators we expect them to perform in the public arena without comment, certainly not to defame or disrespect the people who pay them, or the nation that sired them. They have no other useful purpose in society except for our entertainment. It is a narrow platform upon which they perform and politics, not one of their better subjects, should be avoided at all costs. But, It’s too late. Disgust is permeating the fan base.

To be held forth as grand examples to little children is to tell a gross lie. Proud of their individual histories of incarcerations for illegal firearms possession, drug use and trafficking, arrests for family violence, manslaughters by DUI, and fathering children by multiple women, does not qualify for any status above an employed factory worker struggling to support a family, or an unemployed worker seeking a job. Only their salary makes them unique.

These are ignorant people and many have only recently learned to peel banana’s with their hands. That’s why they must play in sports. That’s why many subsequently experience careers shortened by injuries leading to even shorter life’s. Their only individual goal is to achieve a niche in the Hall of Fame or claim a garish piece of finger jewelry to prove their bragging rights. They demand respect yet refuse to give it. Respect is earned, not in the arena of combat, those rewards are money and trinkets, but in the conduct a man demonstrates in living his daily life.

Americans are tired of them claiming a status to which they do not belong but earnestly aspire, as victims because they are black. The thoughtless impulses that has driven most of them to “take a knee” and display a morbid disrespect to American traditions, lies in the psychology of group think. Group think is exactly what Karl Marx intended for the laboring classes. Many, gifted with reading skills ending at the eighth grade level, can only find their emotional release on the playing fields of equals, where end zone displays for crossing a line with a pointed ball, simply reveals the true depth of their real nature.

Money does not buy dignity nor respect. The Dallas Cowboy’s owner, Jerry Jones comments not withstanding, the whole NFL dilemma is going to represent a sea change in American thinking about exactly what is truly important and what’s worth spending money on. In Atlanta recently, in the new stadium and on the same field where the Atlanta Falcons under perform, the crowd for Atlanta’s soccer team exceeded 74,000 fans, “Houston, we have a problem!”

The opiate of the NFL working class, as Marx might have said, is the cheers and admiration that resounds within the confines of the stadium. To the individual Gladiator, glad handing and high fives, chest bumps and pretending to urinate on a goal post like a dog, while once amusing, are now becoming symbols of cultural depravity. The lessening crowds at NFL games show it.

Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the way. Now, go get ‘em!

George G. McClellan, a California native, was a Regular Army veteran and served a tour in post war Korea. His post army professional career covered 43 years in law enforcement including the California Highway Patrol and the US Naval Investigative Service (NCIS), among others. With the latter, he became a world traveler visiting and working in many countries from the Philippine Islands to the United Kingdom, Asia, the Middle-East, Bosnia, all of Europe, Russia and India. He retired from the NIS at Naval Air Station, Atlanta, Ga. and has remained in the north Georgia area since 1990 as a co-owner of a Security Consulting company. He earned a Certified Protectional Professional (CPP) certification from the American Society for Industrial Security, as well as a Fraud Examiner certification (CFE).
He has published a historical biography on a namesake, a member of the John Jacob Astor Fur Company who explored a route west, and back, after Lewis and Clark. Early American history, Celtic influence on America and conservative politics, remain his greatest interests. He is also a bagpiper since 1975. He and his wife since 1965 now resides in Gilmer County, Ga.